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First Year - A Look At Our Homeschool

I must say I'm much more relaxed about my third child officially beginning homeschooling than I was with the others. I've observed in my other kids an amazing ability to learn through play and in the freedom of exploration that homeschooling offers. Therefore, I trust that he will continue to learn in the same way so no need for a formal curriculum just yet.

Reading

DS5 showed readiness to read when he was 3 when he learnt the alphabet while we were doing an alphabet puzzle together and knew all his letters from that day forward! I then set him up with a reading eggs account and purchased some simple readers and we were off. I advocate watching for signs of children's readiness to read before introducing reading. I was in no rush to teach my children to read but found that my firstborn actually taught himself to read with very little prompting - I just provided some books and alphabet games! It made me realise that some kids WANT to learn to read when they are young and we are wise to follow the signs.He will continue to read books from the library, readers we have and I will continue to do lots of reading with him while cuddling on the couch!

Writing

I have the first book of the handwriting without tears series which we will introduce at some stage during the year. DS5 can't hold a pencil correctly so I might need to seek some help with that.

Maths

When my other children were this age we used lots of maths manipulatives and simple fun games to learn about addition and subtraction, sequencing, grouping etc. DS5 seems to like maths and is confident with simple addition and subtraction so we will look at continuing to progress. He will continue with studyladder for reinforcement - which he loves.

Music

I may regret that for Christmas this boy received his first set of drums. He has been super keen and although given his age I'm not ready for drum lessons I will set him up with some YouTube videos to learn some basic drum skills.He will also continue learning piano at the Yamaha school of music.

Sport

This is my 5 year olds strength. He has excellent hand/eye co-ordination and shows a good range of skills in most sports so we will continue tennis coaching and may look at district basketball and Auskick for later in the year. As this is something he is clearly gifted at we will look at how we can best nurture this. As this is his first 'official' homeschooling year then I will include 1:1 time in our flexible schedule and he will continue to join his brothers for devotions, science and Australian history. Most of all I will ENJOY this stage of learning and teaching this precious boy!

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